


Free Flight

by AceOfShipping



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: 9th pass, Dragonriders of Pern - Freeform, F/F, F/M, It's Dragonriders guys, M/M, Multi, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Sooner or later the rating will change, Southern Continent, Southern Weyr, but for now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 21:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14434935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfShipping/pseuds/AceOfShipping
Summary: A young girl from the northern continent, Morana, has been sent to the southern hold for fostering. On a long trip gathering, she could never have foreseen what she would find. A fire lizard nest. And what is up with the old-timers? Drawn into the dysfunctional southern weyr and all its internal struggle, will she fly or fall?





	Free Flight

It was a hot day, not unbearable, not to a well-hardened southerner, but to Morana? It was scorching. She’d been here just three sevendays, had only just seen her first threadfall in the south, and she already loathed every midday, dreading it every morning, looming as it was in the horizon with the blazing sun. Morana was a northerner, her fair hair had already become several shades brighter than it had been when she arrived, going from the deep gold of a queen dragon, to whatever this was. Her eyes squinted every time she went outside, struggling to take in all the brightness. 

But all the same, she refused to stay inside. Her skin had mostly recovered from the initial sunburns, and was now darkening just slightly, instead of peeling off at the first lick of sun. Perhaps all the salt water had helped. Morana adored the sea, already she’d ventured quite far along it, and found several coves of her own. Her parents at the Fishercrafthall of Tillek had thought it crucial to expand their activities to the southern continent, with Master Idarolan’s blessing, and their expansion of activities, well the first wave anyway, had been her. Technically, she was sent for fostering at the Southern Hold, but she was too old to need any, and too disinterested in fishing to do much more than what she had to. Mostly, she walked freely, something which was tolerated because she would always carry her sack with her to bring home edible seaweed and other delicacies, and because she was always painfully aware of threadfall. In short, they trusted her to bring back something useful, and they trusted her to not die.

There was a refreshing sense of anarchy to the hold, certainly its Lord Holder, Toric, trusted his people to do what they did best, on their own accord. He’d not paid her any attention after the first few days, after which she’d proven that she wasn’t going to spontaneously combust, and that she wasn’t going to use more resources than she added to the stores. 

Heartened by the not-quite-lethal-yet temperatures, and the fact that there was a full sevenday until threadfall, Morana was already in the storerooms at dawn, stuffing her bag with tubers and fruit, and of course a waterskin. One the route she planned to take along the beaches, there was plenty of freshwater springs to be found, but one had always better be safe. She would have no trouble finding shellfish, that she knew, and with a net and a spear at hand she was always deft enough to catch a fish. That was something she’d noted, the fish here was more abundant in shallow waters than fish in the north, and could quite easily be spear-fished. Besides, a spear and a knife were always useful things to carry around. On the strap of her bag hung her empty sack, which, by the time of her return, would no doubt be bursting.

Morana left the moment she was set, wanting to make as much progress a she could while the sun was as low as possible, only barely stopping for long enough to let the baker know that she was off, so that someone would know her whereabouts if there was anyone asking. 

The sand crunched beneath her feet, and she was quick to take off her shoes and walk barefoot, as it made her path that much easier. She knew these beaches, so it was safe thus far. But she planned to go well beyond where she had previously ventured. 

Out in the glistening waves, her keen blue eyes caught the glimpse of the early morning fish schools, considering whether she should throw out her net, but settling on just gathering a few mussels and clams from the shallows instead. They’d hold better than the fish and were easier to eat raw. That was one reason why she, deep down, didn’t want to leave the north. Food was ample here, fresh food much more so than where she came from. As she stood there, just by the shallows, with the cool ocean licking at her feet, her hands busied with neatly opening the clam shell, Morana couldn’t help but feel just a little like she loved this land. 

Above her, a gleam of brown and bronze heralded the presence of dragonriders, but she did not see them. No one took notice of the dragonriders in Southern, because they were mostly T’kul and Mardra’s oldtimers, and ignoring them often yielded better results than acknowledging their presence.

With one neat slurp, the clam was down, and Morana threw the shells aside and continued on her path. One secluded cove replaced the other, peaceful and quiet, with just the constant waves for background noise. As she walked, she sang, with a voice of one whose ancestors had always shouted against the wind.

_My nightly craft is winged in white, a dragon of night dark sea._  
_Swift born, dream bound and rudderless, her captain and crew are me._  
_We've sailed a hundred sleeping tides where no seaman's ever been_  
_And only my white-winged craft and I know the wonders we have seen_

Abruptly, Morana stopped dead in her tracks. Not more than a few dragonlengths before here, there was something she had only very rarely seen, and never in this state. It was a fire-lizard’s nest, no doubt about that, and there was something moving in it.

“Shards!” Morana immediately ran to it, suddenly finding herself cradling a tiny little golden creature, screaming to the heavens with hunger, and clawing at her skin without a care in the world for the blood it drew. Morana wanted to put it down, just to get her hands free, but it clung to her with claws as sharp as knives, and its tail had wrapped around her forearm, making the endeavour impossible. Instead, she had to struggle with one and a half hands, and the task of opening every one of the mussels she’d gathered. Would it do? She had always heard that firelizards preferred red meats, but surely it would do?

What if the little gold creature died? And it would be her fault!

With shaking hands, she offered the first mussel to the little queen, and to Morana’s great relief, she took it with a triumphant shriek. And the one after that, and the one after that. In the end, Morana’s stores were depleted, but the firelizard was more than pleased. Her little stomach bulged, and her eyes were almost closed. With a burp, her grip around Morana’s arm almost slipped, so that she had to be caught before she could stumble.

Now that she had a moment, where had the little queen’s siblings gone? There were more shards in the sand than could come from a single egg, but the sky was empty, and there was no nearby cave. Why had they left the little queen behind? She was unusually tiny, even for the few newly hatched firelizards that Morana had seen in her turns, but even so, surely…

Regardless, she needed a name. “Larith. It sounds so much like a dragon queen, doesn’t it?” Morana chuckled, but Larith wasn’t in a mood to answer. She had already fallen asleep in the careful grip of her keeper, and it was all Morana could do to keep from outright laughing at the little thing.

“Alright, you sleep then, Larith. Leave the hard work to me.” 

Shelter, first. Then she needed to find more food, for both of them. It was a while to the next cave, but doable. Larith wasn’t heavy, not quite yet, though with her voracious appetite she would be very soon.

They found a cave, with a secluded cove situated just right beneath them, and Morana chose to stop here for a few days. Just long enough to manage at least a little hint of a routine around the ever-hungry and ever-complaining firelizard. Really, the little gold was a diva, she complained even when her eyes were closed and her stomach stuffed to bursting. When she woke up, she complained, when she went to sleep, she complained. But Morana took it all in stride, as Larith grew at an almost alarming rate. There wasn’t much to alleviate her patchy hide with, since Morana had only accounted for herself when she brought what little ointments she did have, so they had to make supplies last.

Nearly at the end of the third day, with her mind on everything but her original task, Morana sat perched on the still-hot sand, alongside Larith, who was careening happily in her lap as she stroked her eye ridges and spread the ointment carefully over her gleaming hide in an even layer. It was bliss, a singular task that she could perform without really having to think deeply on it, and double the satisfaction as Larith’s distinct glee fluttered at the edges of her mind. Perhaps that was why she didn’t notice the two circling shadows high in the cloudless, darkening sky.


End file.
